Distorted
Reflections
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering
the rich."
- Napoleon
 Back
in 2002, right after the Republican Party gained the majority
in both houses of Congress, I had a quite conservative friend
tell me that "Now we'll
see things get done."
Six years later, on January 30th, to be exact, a congressional
report was released stating that the basic cause of the current
worldwide
fiscal
meltdown
was
due largely
in part to the massive amounts of deregulation which occured
in all parts of our government and business at the hands
of this very same Republican majority.
In a way, my friend was right... things got done. The Chinese
populace of Nanking said
the same thing about the Japanese army back
in 1937.
The one thing this terrible period has made clear, to me
anyway, is the central focus of the Republican Party....
they want all
the
money. More than honor, more than country, more than god,
they want the money. And they'll do whatever it takes to
get it even if it means poisoning the land , the water, the
food, the airwaves or the body politic, all the while mouthing
the words "fiscal responsibility".
This, however, makes for a pretty lousy party platform so
the GOP has carefully padded their rolls by embracing every
emotional
issue they can possibly dredge up. Guns, religion, abortion,
gays, immigrants, taxes, creationism. Basically, if something
can be argued on
faith rather
than hard facts then they've got a new constituency.
Dubious? Let me put it this way... if you met a xenophobic,
gay-bashing, pro-life, anti-evolution snake-handler
with
a fully-automatic
AK-47 mounted in the back of his pick-up truck you could
wager good money that he would consider himself a Republican
and win that bet 99.99999% of the time.
These aren't real Republicans, of course. These are just
dupes. Rubes that can be flim-flammed by a bright, shiny
lie. These are the one's responsible
for the Republican majority in 2002, and Mr. Bush's re-election
is 2004. They, as much as anyone, dug the economic hole they're
now standing in.
Real Republicans, on the other hand, are those 1% of Americans
who own 60% of everything. They're the one's who doubled
their
incomes,
mostly
on capital
gains, over the past six years. They're the one's paying,
on average, just 17% in taxes.
They're the one's
who, honestly, loathe the other 99%.
=mike=
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